Collaterals
by wordweb
Summary: In which Kenny's left aggravated by the unnecessary compensation received by the mercenary. One-shot, Christophe/Kenny


Hello! This was written on whim, really. I wrote this basically wanting to get the ideas down before they all left my mind completely. So this may seem a little spontaneously written, ahaha. I'm simultaneously stressing out about Swine Flu at this time since traveling has suddenly become a much more hasslesome thing ever since H1N1 came out. Argh.

Regardless, I hope you enjoy!

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_**Collaterals**_

March 23rd

Kenny barges into the Mole's bungalow one evening and clambers his way across the living room, careful to avoid the mess of shirts, jeans, unfinished assignment papers and empty cigarette packets. He promptly collapses on an empty wooden seat next to the small dining table the brunette bought last winter at a K-Mart clearance sale he'd dragged him to, his arms folded loosely on the table and his head slouched sluggishly against them.

Christophe's already sitting there when he arrives, crossed booted-legs resting on the table head, and a cigarette predictably present – stuck in between firmed lips. He merely quirks a brow in response, watching amusingly as Kenny sits himself down opposite him.

They rest in silence for a minute or so, before Christophe takes one last drag off his Marlboro, and calmly stubs the butt out on a stained ash tray nearby. He becomes the one to initiate conversation.

"You're late, you realize. Ze game ended half an hour ago."

Kenny merely snorts, and tilts his head up, staring languidly at the dried lining of stale paint that's beginning to crumble off the ceiling. "That's alright, 'cause I managed to watch the game when Satan lent me his cable."

"…you died, _again_?"

"Mhmm."

"How?"

"I got run over on the way here. By a meatloaf truck."

"Zat makes zis ze fifth time this month zat you've been hit by a motor vehicle. Ze _fifth_ time."

"Yeah. The thing is, I actually _do_ try to stick to the sidewalks like most people do. It's just that the trucks have a habitual thing of ignoring pedestrian walkways and running me over anyway," Kenny shrugs indifferently. "Call it bad luck."

The Mole merely scoffs quietly in response, taking his feet off the table and planting it back firmly on the ground. He tilts his seat back slightly and reaches out for the window blinds behind him, slowly unreeling them to let some moonlight in.

"Did you at least catch ze license plate number?"

"…why?"

Kenny drops his gaze back down from the ceiling and looks towards the mercenary, who's gazing out the window from between the blinds, when he responds nonchalantly: "Tell me ze company, because I may be able to get some compensation for you."

­March 24th

The next morning, Kenny is awoken to a rapid knocking on his apartment door, to his dismay. He checks his alarm clock – 8:43am. Too damn early to get up for anything. He tries ignoring the sound by burying himself under his pillow, but after another five minutes of repetitive knocking, he grunts and forcefully hauls himself out of bed. He ambles his way towards the door and wrenches it open, where he's greeted with a rather flustered looking clergy boy from the very same meat loaf company that ran him over two days ago, a large, crumpled white envelope containing what appeared to be green bundles of bills held nervously in between his arms. The boy shoves the envelope in Kenny's hands, and flees, hastily retreating back to the elevator loft.

Kenny blinks blankly for a moment, and just stares down at the pile of money he's just received. He rubs his eyes, and convinces himself that he's dreaming, and that he should return to bed before the pleasant dream turns into another one of his death-related nightmares again. So he drags himself back to his room, and flings himself over his bed, not bothering to tuck himself back into the covers. It takes him another four hours of sleep before he realizes that the Mole's been up to his work again.

April 2nd

"…let me get zis straight."

"Go on."

"You were pushed off the fourth floor of the humanities building - "

"Uh huh,"

" – by an out-of-control book cart – "

"Yup,"

" – which zis 'Tweek' kid 'appened to accidentally knock over as he was running towards his hospitalities lecture?"

"That pretty much sums it up. Oh wait, you forgot about that fall I took after I flew out of the window." He takes a quick glance back towards the pavement, yellow tape and blood stains still present, a coroner or two still loafing around with sample-collecting bags and cameras. "It wasn't a pretty landing either, dude."

The French mercenary drags a gloved hand across his face, muffling an exasperated groan. "Are you sure it wasn't intentional? April fools was just yesterday, after all."

"Probably not. Tweeks wouldn't try ambushing me knowing that I hang out with you." Kenny sniffles slightly. "Plus there's no Craig to give the poor guy any attack orders anymore."

"Zen _why_ do you always end up at the wrong place at the wrong time? It has only been one week since you last died, a mere week!"

The blonde simply shrugs – oblivious. "Dunno. Unconscious old habits die hard, I guess."

Kenny suddenly feels himself yanked forward, as Christophe suddenly seizes hold of the rim of his shirt. He locks eyes with a fierce leer from the brunette, and gulps slightly when he notices the determination set in the mercenary's eyes.

"Give me ze full name and address of zis kid. _Now_, Kenny. Not later."

April 5th

Kenny's working at the library one afternoon, and is buried behind mounds of books he's grabbed off the shelves randomly. He realizes that procrastination has never been much of a helper, because it's only when the deadline's within a week that he actually begins to work. He's a martyr of his own suffering, he thinks, and unconsciously inflicts the damage to himself at times by waiting till the last moment before acting, when it's all too late and he's swallowed up by a large tide of mounted problems.

So he's sat by a work desk, a large number of books mounted in small piles all around him, and he's having to huddle himself in a corner just to find space to write on his notepad.

His currently blank notepad.

He grips his hair, and bumps his head gently against the table edge slightly, trying to drown out the frustration that's beginning to mangle his brain internally. He tries staring out the window, looking for a source of inspiration, the sky, a bird, a flower, anything. But all he sees is the spring sunlight mingling gently against the lawn outside the library, with the peachy flowery and shrubs growing around the edges and the occasional butterfly fluttering by. It's too rosy of a picture to even work off.

He drags his gaze back towards a single line sprawled neatly on the top of his assignment sheet, and it almost kills to have to look at it again for the tenth time this half hour.

'_Evaluate the value of arts created during America's Post World War II Period – 4000 words._'

And damn, because he's _never_ been good with words, let alone essays.

He rakes his hands through his hair, because he's frustrated and confused and he feels like his head's about to disintegrate all because he can't think of one damned opening sentence. He's about to try to bang his head against the desk edge again, when he feels a warm presence hovering above him suddenly. He glances up quickly, catching the untidy blonde hair and hollow eyes, immediately identifying that it's just Tweek.

A heavily bandaged and semi-bruised Tweek.

He momentarily lets his jaw hang openly in a sort of stupor, snapping out of it when Tweek coughs lightly and begins talking mutedly.

"Ergh – oh, um, hi Kenny."

"Uh, hey there."

"Y-you look sort of stoked there."

"Yeah, with assignments."

"_Argh_ – I mean oh."

"Uh huh."

They stare at each other for awhile longer, Kenny watching amusingly as Tweek fiddles with his thumbs, leering down at the wooden hard and taking extra care to avoid eye contact. He lets it continue for about minute before he gets bored.

"Look Tweek," he tells him, a little annoyed. "If Mole did this to you let me tell you that I'm – "

" – Why don't I do that essay for you?"

"…what?"

"S-seriously," he begins stuttering, "I don't mind much. I've taken arts before as a minor subject before, so I probably wouldn't do a half-bad job at it either, and…"

"Look man," Kenny begins, turning his seat slightly so he's facing Tweek. "You don't have to do this. Heck, it's probably better if I do it myself. Plagiarism checkers and all – "

" – N-no! Not at all!"

Kenny blinks, and arches an eyebrow in curiosity. The dude is even more flustered than usual.

"I mean, I feel bad about that book cart incident, and – and I figured this would help patch things up." And before Kenny can mouth another word, Tweek dives forward to scoop the books off the desk, latching onto them firmly.

"Ergh – trust me! I'll do a good job on this, you'll be getting at least a B without a doubt."

He watches silently as Tweek stalks off with his books, turning briskly behind a shelf and disappearing further into the library. Kenny's not one to deny help for homework, but he's not a manipulative, slave-driving bastard like Eric Cartman either. It's this thought which causes him to heave a low heavy sigh, and bury his head into gloved hands.

He hates it when he's made to look no different than that fat ass.

May 5th

He avoids Mole's place for a month, and hangs out with Clyde who's visiting Token in the area – because he doesn't die as frequently when he's not hanging out by himself and has got others covering his back (excluding Stan, Kyle and Cartman).

He's walking home one day from a long night out, slightly sober from an overdose of Token's booze, when he's suddenly jumped by strangers as he's passing an empty street. They want his wallet, they state. So Kenny does the most natural and logical thing that springs to mind when he's confronted with the situation.

He kicks the tallest mugger in the nuts and immediately sprints away.

He flees into the alleyway, running past the occasional graffitied walls, deserted back lofts whilst he's enclosed by wired fences at almost every corner. He runs far into the depths of the alley, until he reaches a dead end at the very end of the alley.

He backs himself up against the brick wall as the thugs near him from the other end of the alleyway. He can already feel his heart racing, and the perspiration building up from within his orange parka. He wishes he had a gun, or at least a pocket knife – something, anything.

But he's never been the kid to prepare for situations like these, and only considers it when it's all too late, he knows.

He hits the back of his head hard against the brick behind him, and he swears he's just heard a loud 'crack' against his skull. It's too dark to tell where exactly he is within the alley, but he knows that it's probably too far, and too deep within to even attempt crying for help.

He's suddenly hauled up with the violent jerk of his shirt, and punched squarely in the face for the fifth time this hour. He can feel the already blue bruise on his cheek transpiring to an even darker shade with each passing the moment, the stings wedging its way further through his facial nerves. He collapses onto the ground, his knees too weak from all the previous running to hold himself up, and his head too twisted and delirious to focus on anything anymore. He's out of strength, he's out of stamina, and he's probably lost half his face by now because he can damn well feel the blood oozing off the side of his head.

He chuckles lowly from the ground, with his fringe blinding his sight. "Do it. Just do it." Because in all honesty, he's lost too much nerves from his last twenty deaths to even feel fear anymore. He locks his eyelids shut, and mentally braces himself for the blow he's about to receive.

But it never comes, and instead, he hears a sudden metallic 'thunk' from above, and some scuffling from around him. He can't see, but he can hear everything clearly, including the loud cries and calls for retreat from the muggers,

He looks up, his eyes inoculated mostly by the dark, but the faint lighting from nearby lamp post is enough to cast a dim light on his liberator – a lean but muscular young brunette, roughly his age, a cigarette wedged in between splintered lips and a shovel gripped firmly in between gloved hands. He's got this cold, aggressive expression stamped on his face, and if observed closely enough, the guy looks almost homicidal.

Although that's probably the actual case here, knowing him.

Christophe stows his shovel back on its backstrap, and leans down towards Kenny, running a slow, heavy hand over the blonde's forehead.

"What would you do without me, you beetch."

Kenny smirks from below, and doesn't say a word even as he feels himself slowly hoisted from the ground and carried off by the mercenary. He can faintly smell the sweat, dirt, blood and the Camel cigarette that he knows he's smoking, and can hear the light clinking of his metal shovel and buckles. It's warm next to him, he realizes, and if he presses his head closely enough, he can faintly hear the mercenary's heart beat.

He suddenly remembers why he became friends with this French maniac in the first place – why he'd put up with all the infamous anti-religious rants, the repetitive Les Miserables reruns on his cable, and the violent demeanor. Because the guy was awesome in his own individual way, and he could damn well pave him a clear path forward beyond all the shit that enshrouded his normally miserable life with a single rusty shovel. He glances up at Christophe and smiles.

"And I hope I can be as much use to you as you have been to me."

The Mole merely chuckles and replies lightly in a humored tone.

"You 'ave, Kenny. You 'ave."

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Reviews and feedback for this would be awesome! Thanks to all the reviewers I've received thus far for other stories!


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